Quotes About Language

My mom makes the best Cajun stuff. I'm a big gumbo guy. I've lost a lot of my Louisiana accent, so now when I say 'gumbo,' I feel like someone who's never said the word before.

Words are so lovable. How could you not love words?

You can't talk about yourself in the third party - that makes you a lunatic!

You can go to some countries where people may not be able to conversate with you, but they can sing your lyrics word for word.

Being able to play all over the world to different audiences and have them sing my lyrics back to me, even if they can't speak the same language, is crazy.

By the end of my BA, I was still not good in English, but I went on to enroll for an MA in History.

There's something magical about the idea that you can write something down and someone else can read it. I'm still mildly agog about that.

The main thing my bookcase says about me is that I'm not French.

I was an English major.

I was an English major in college!

Move beyond the educated elite, and the great majority in most countries outside Europe don't speak English.

When I was 14 years old, I was crazy about Dr. Seuss. I loved the words he made up, and I just thought, 'Well, if he can make up words, then I can make up words.'

It's an important thing for children to be able to make up their own words.

The whole idea of spellbinding, of being an entertainer, being the center of the stage, making up words - that let me know that writing is nice.

I think 'manager' is a stupid word.

I moved to New York when I was eight years old, in 1978. I grew up in Manhattan. I couldn't speak any English, and I had dyslexia, so it took me many years before I could read.

If there is on earth a house with many mansions, it is the house of words.

After my husband spell-checks one of my manuscripts, my editor says, 'It's been Normanized.'

You have to be very careful when you speak French around Kris Marshall.

The demon at length fell to singing a gentle, flickering little song. It was not in any language Sophie knew - or she thought not, until she distinctly heard the word saucepan in it several times...

I can't wear thethe ! I want my thtwipey oneth !

and said grace in Welsh. It was all rolling, thundering language.

I hate dialect. It gets in the way. If there is a need for dialect, you can render it quite easily by reproducing the rythm of that form of speech. Then you don't need to bother with silly spellings

This carpet," said Abdullah, "unlike you, is of an ensorcellment so pure and excellent that it will listen only to the finest of language. It is at heart a poet among carpets." A certain smugness spread through the pile of the carpet. It held its tattered edges proudly straight and sailed sweetly forward into the golden sunlight above the mist.